We Can Be Heroes
by thisism3smiling
Summary: When a madman hijacks their train, several passengers take saving their lives into their own hands.
1. Save Me

**Save Me**  
><em>Prompt: Believe<em>

"You're all going to die," Naraku announced, adjusting the beanie on his head with a satisfied smirk. Like the madman he was, he sat cross-legged on the floor of the train, eyeing all sixteen of his hostages with delight obvious in his red-brown eyes. "It's just a matter of when," he tacked on, twirling a tentacle over his knee. "For now, I'll let the outside world _think _you can be saved."

"Great," a passenger muttered, sighing deeply into his hands. _`As if riding this metal contraption to work everyday isn't vexing enough.' _It just _had _to get hijacked. Something told him Naraku's threats were mostly empty, and though he had no reason to believe this, his instincts were sharp and nothing about the attack scared him.

_`When I get off of this thing—' _and InuYasha Takahashi was sure that he would _'—I'm filing the longest complaint ever to those MTA bastards.'_

Satisfied that somewhere along the line, someone would pay for his ruined morning, InuYasha closed his eyes and mentally drowned out Naraku when the demon got up to prattle some more about his nefarious plans.

.

.

Minutes later, he was startled awake by a whimper. What he saw both boiled and stirred something in his blood: Naraku had one of the passengers by the throat. What struck InuYasha as he watched her struggle—her nails clawing to no avail at the tentacle wound tightly around her neck—was her eyes. They were wide and desperate, scared and pleading…

…and they were focused on him.

Glimmering with just a spark of hope, the woman's round baby blues flickered first above his head, then down to his face. They stayed there, asking for help with words the woman couldn't speak.

InuYasha found himself at a loss for what to do.

His motto, and a hard lesson he learned from life, was to keep his head down and stay out of everyone else's way. It was a policy that kept his cursed birth as a half-breed from getting him into trouble.

But now…?

Here was this woman—a complete stranger—begging him to save her, and everything about the way she looked at him screamed that she believed he could do it. Where everyone else had disregarded him, or made him feel weak and worthless, she made him feel like maybe…

…_possibly_…

He could be a hero.

InuYasha startled Naraku when he rose from his seat. Never breaking eye contact with the captured woman, the hanyou snarled and raised a clawed hand.

"Let her go."

Naraku smirked. Mockingly, he raised the woman high above his head, his hold around her throat tightening.

"And if I don't?"

_`I can't believe I'm going to do this.'_

InuYasha cracked his knuckles and let his aura flare. Eyes widening, Naraku dropped the girl, then laughed as only a madman could.

"A hanyou?"

Like _him._

His smirk spread into something sinister.

"This just got interesting."


	2. Stand By Me

**Stand By Me**  
><em>Prompt: Ignite<em>

"Where are you going?" Kagome asked in a strained, scared voice as one by one, the hostages snuck out of the train. While her hanyou hero engaged in battle, going claw to tentacle with the man holding them hostage, the people he'd just saved were abandoning him. "We have to do something!" she pleaded, grabbing one man by the arm.

"Lady," he shoved her off. "If that half-breed idiot wants to kill himself—fine—but he just bought us our escape."

With that, he and several more passengers filtered into the tunnel, running for their lives. Kagome felt herself wanting to cry. The kind, dog-eared man saved her life when Naraku singled her out intending to kill her and though she had nothing at her disposal, she still wanted to help him.

"Cowards," someone muttered. Kagome gasped when she noticed that several people hadn't exited the train.

"A-aren't you going to leave too?" she stammered, eying the ones who stayed. There was a man with kind violet eyes, a tall, athletic-looking woman, and a small child. The man who spoke out smiled at her.

"Of course not. I'd like to help in whatever way I can."

"But what can we do?" Kagome asked, at a loss. On the far side of the train, InuYasha struggled to hold off Naraku. He looked over his shoulder and for a moment, their eyes met, his widening.

"What are you still doing here? _GO!_" he grunted, surprised that she hadn't yet left. Kagome shook her head, remembering how he had stepped up and forced Naraku's hold off of her throat.

"You saved me. I'm not leaving you," she assured him.

"Yeah. _We're_ not going anywhere."

It was the woman who spoke up as she bent to pick up a piece of twisted railing. Bent at an odd angle, the debris could almost function as a boomerang.

"Right!" the child chimed in, and Kagome realized he was youkai. His small hands lit up with blue-green fire.

The violet-eyed man grinned, and the humans and tiny demon stepped forward.

It was foolish, stupid, maybe even suicidal, but a strange energy flared within them all, giving them the confidence to back up their hanyou savior.

"Idiots," Kagome heard InuYasha mutter as he overcame Naraku, slamming the tentacled man against a wall.

Kagome giggled, fearlessly stepping up behind him.

"You know..." she mused as her hands tingled with a strange, new, but empowering light.

_"This feels familiar."_


	3. Glorious

**Glorious**  
><em>Prompt: Rush<em>

He found her hand mid-battle and squeezed tightly, holding onto the familiarity she mentioned and feeling it in every excited twitch of her fingers. InuYasha and Kagome both sensed it. Launching attacks with strange names like "Hiraikotsu!" and "Fox-Fire!" Sango, Miroku, and Shippou all grinned because they felt it, too and knew—before the monster, Naraku, could draw another breath—what would happen:

Victory.  
>They were going to <em>win<em>.

So with renewed, anxious vigor they attacked. InuYasha hit Naraku with taloned fists that slashed like a too-heavy sword, punch-slicing through his bulging, twisting, and turning tentacles. Kagome backed him up with pink blasts of energy and Miroku with purple, that turned and snaked their way around Shippou's blue-green fire, while Sango gave their attacks strength with bits of debris that cut through the air like impossibly big boomerangs.

Somewhere existed a parallel and maybe somewhere else, a group of people like them felt like train passengers fighting for their city and one another, the same way they felt like the skirted miko, the haori-clad hanyou, the wind-tunneled monk, the slayer, and the vibrant kid-fox—and at that somewhere, maybe Naraku fell as theirs did: his breath hitched in as red-brown eyes saw their fate before it crashed into him in a ball of brilliant, pure light.

.

.

Later, when they were standing on an empty platform, devoid of the evil that had taken them hostage, it was Miroku who broke through their heavy breathing, shocked gasps, and wordless excitement.

With a grin too reminiscent of a lecher from the past, he eyed his companions, mischievous violet flicking over the hanyou and miko still holding hands, the beautiful slayer, and the precocious, strong-willed fox.

"We did it."

The `_again_' hung heavy and unspoken in the crackling air between them.

"Now lets do lunch."


End file.
